Live rock acts at Laundry Bar for Converse Get Loud Tour Finale brought down the house; Sepatu 69 crowned champion of music video competition

If you’ve been following my Instagram or/and Twitter, you probably noticed that I attended the Converse Get Loud Tour Finale gig last Sunday at Laundry Bar, The Curve. It was a taste of high school (or rather secondary school) fun again for me. Thick smell of cigarette smoke in a tiny place with a small stage, jeans, sneakers, beers, passionate head-banging crowd, a mosh pit and of course, the sweet heavy sound of live rock music by local young, indie and underground bands with attitude. Punk to hard rock to metal, fuck pop and clubbing crap. It was a spot on rock show, absolutely nostalgic, reminded me of why I wanted to be a rock star back then. But it was in fact actually more than just another gig at Laundry Bar with a sponsoring brand. Converse wanted to provide the platform for Malaysian rock talents to be heard.
As part of Converse Inc.’s global activation, Converse Malaysia launched the Get Loud campaign early September 2013 with a two-part activation; A music series tour as well as an online music video competition. The Converse Get Loud Tour brought free live rock n’ roll to Penang, Johor Bahru and the Klang Valley to the fans with the best talents Malaysia can offer like Maddthelin, Tres Empre, Massacre Conspiracy, Blister (this one’s my favourite act of the night), The Padangs and many more. Converse has invited over 20 local rock bands to play throughout the tour and has brought free music to over a thousand supporters of local music.

The How Loud Can You Get? online video competition was launched during the first week of September and has since overwhelmingly received over 40 submissions within a short span of 3 weeks, although only 24 videos were chosen to be uploaded to Converse Malaysia’s Facebook Page. Concluded on the final minutes of 30th September 2013, the Top 3 highest voted bands based on the ‘likes’ on Facebook and Youtube, Sepatu Sixtynine, Vahaya and Nervedeless were invited to the Get Loud Tour Finale at Laundry Bar, The Curve Damansara. Surprisingly, the former two winning bands were hailing from the North cities of Kedah & Penang whereas Nervedeless has been making waves in the Klang Valley indie music scene.

Converse Get Loud Tour Finale gathers the best of Malaysian rock n’ roll together with newfound talents chosen by the social media users. This one night only, free for all rock concert at the indie rock hub, Laundry Bar. The three bands were given only one chance during the show, to perform one song and judging will be based on that single performance. After a stiff Battle of the Bands style action, Sepatu Sixtynine walked away with the Grand Prize of RM15,000 along with a one-year Converse Malaysia sponsorship.

All media and bloggers got a goodie bag with a voucher to redeem a pair of Converse sneakers worth RM100. I haven’t redeemed it yet but when I do, I’ll most likely post ’em up on Instagram so do stay tuned to it if you’re interested to see what they’re like.

I’ve heard that the next Converse campaign or the next season of Get Loud may have something to do with tattoos instead. Can’t wait to see the development to that. Rock on, Converse!